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The final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones had a reported $90 million budget, or $15 million per episode. That’s a lot of money for a TV show. But spending $15 million on a series finale isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? $30 million on a series premiere.

In his new book, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers, author James Andrew Miller spoke to former WarnerMedia entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt about what went wrong with the abandoned Thrones prequel starring Naomi Watts, Naomi Ackie, and Miranda Richardson. HBO decided not to movie forward with the series, which would have been set during the “Age of Heroes,” because, well, it wasn’t working and it was too dang expensive. That’s not what you want from a TV show.

“They had spent over $30 million on a Game of Thrones prequel pilot that was in production when I got there,” Greenblatt said (via Insider). “And when I saw a cut of it in a few months after I arrived, I said to [HBO head Casey Bloys], ‘This just doesn’t work and I don’t think it delivers on the promise of the original series.’ And he didn’t disagree, which actually was a relief.” He added, “So we unfortunately decided to pull the plug on it. There was enormous pressure to get it right and I don’t think that would have worked.”

That pilot was a bust, but HBO hasn’t given up on Game of Thrones: there’s a Targaryen-focused prequel coming out next year, and the Dunk and Egg show found its head writer in Patriot creator Steve Conrad.

(Via Insider)

Younger artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Bad Bunny dominated Spotify’s streaming numbers this year, but there are still many listeners on the platform who have a taste for some more nostalgia-inducing artists. For their Spotify Wrapped series, the streaming giant shared a list of the most-played throwback songs and albums from at least 20 years ago. It shows that those who use Spotify still love music from artists like Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, and The Beatles.

Presumably thanks to their viral TikTok moment in 2020, Fleetwood Mac have both the top-streamed throwback song and album of 2021. Their song “Dreams” is at No. 1 on Spotify’s roundup, as well as their 1977 album Rumours. Behind Fleetwood Mac’s album is Nirvana’s Nevermind, which also had a moment this year thanks to the baby on the cover (who’s now 30 years old) suing the band. At No. 3 on Spotify’s throwback albums list is Hybrid Theory by Linkin Park. Guns ‘N Roses’ Appetite For Destruction came in at No. 4 and, finally, The Beatles’ self-titled album is No. 5 on the most-streamed list.

Fleetwood Mac may have been in the news recently thanks to TikTok and rumors about a reunion tour, but one band who appeared on the list is still more than active. Coldplay‘s “Yellow” was featured on the top-streamed throwback songs at No. 3 on the list right behind Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Behind Coldplay is Nirvana’s hit song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and No. 5 on most-streamed throwback songs list is The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.”

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The much maligned Ted Cruz sure has a strange way of coping with serious issues. One of the most telling indications of this went down long ago, when Ted clerked for the Supreme Court and kept expressing his relish for the death penalty. He spent his downtime during this period (courtesy of a 2016 New York Times profile) making a menace of himself on the basketball court. Surprisingly, his co-workers didn’t enjoy him shouting “my bad!” as he “elbowed wildly” during games. (He sure has a way with elbows, as Heidi Cruz can attest.)

Well, Ted can’t ever forget a score, which was also his vibe after Jimmy Kimmel trashed Ted as a “scumbag” (for painting Dr. Fauci into a villain, so as to better “scare old people”). As such, Ted responded strangely to Kimmel accusing him and “dogsh*t Tucker Carlson making up lies” to secure more far-right votes. Ted decided to completely ignore the substance of Kimmel’s rant, and instead, he bragged about that time they played basketball together.

“The (sadly now always unfunny) @JimmyKimmelLive taking shots at me again last night,” Ted tweeted. “You know what was funny? Me kicking his ass at hoops.” As if that wasn’t strange enough, Ted added, “BasketballBasketballBasketball” to drive his point (whatever the mystery point might be?) home.

As one Twitter user noted in response, “Jimmy Kimmel makes an impassioned defense of science and you respond with basketball clips.” That sums things up quite well.

Also, here’s another Ted basketball clip that shall never die.

Following the NBA’s investigation into potential tampering, both the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls will forfeit their next available second-round pick, the league announced in a release on Wednesday morning. The NBA determined each franchise “violated league rules governing the timing of this season’s free agency discussions.”

Shortly after free agency began in August, Miami and Chicago swiftly negotiated sign-and-trades that brought Kyle Lowry and Lonzo Ball to their respective organizations.

Ball reportedly signed an offer sheet with Chicago immediately once free agency opened at 6 p.m. EST, while Lowry and the Heat were linked even before free agency commenced. On Aug. 1, roughly 20 hours ahead of free agency, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted, “Once discussions are permitted to begin with the opening of NBA free agency on Monday, the Miami Heat are positioning themselves to become frontrunners to land Toronto’s Kyle Lowry in a sign-and-trade agreement.”

Of course, neither of these “punishments” are severe by any means and are unlikely to dissuade future teams from tampering with imminent free agents. If the NBA wishes to actually address this perceived problem, it would issue sterner penalties, though tampering, in the grand scheme, feels like a non-issue and something that doesn’t warrant heightened focus on repercussions.

The arrival of Ball and Lowry in their new Eastern Conference digs has helped each squad snag a top-three seed through the season’s quarter poll. Chicago is 14-8 and the No. 2 seed, half a game up on the 13-8, third-seeded Heat.

The New York Knicks made the quick trip (traffic permitting) into Brooklyn on Tuesday evening to take on the Nets. While they put forth a valiant effort, the Knicks were unable to pick up the win, as the Nets defended their home court at the Barclays Center, 112-110.

New York standout Julius Randle stuffed the stat sheet in the loss, going for 24 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, and two steals in 40 minutes of work. Of those 24 points, Randle only scored two of them at the free throw line, the latest in a bit of a trend this season. The 2021 NBA All-Star is shooting 3.8 free throws per 36 minutes, his lowest mark in five years, and has a free throw rate of .297, the lowest of his career.

Randle explained why this is happening after the game, and it has nothing to do with the NBA’s recent rule changes related to fouls. Randle claimed that he’s been told by officials that his ability to overpower defenders means he does not get calls.

“Gotta ask them, I don’t know what they’re watching or what they’re seeing, but you gotta ask them,” Randle said when asked why he doesn’t get more foul calls. “But, like you said, as aggressive as I play, attacking the paint, I can’t be penalized for just being stronger than people. And that’s the answer that I got today.

“They said because certain contact doesn’t affect me like it affects other players, because I’m stronger, they miss the calls,” Randle said when asked to clarify, before expressing his disappointment that he is officiated this way.

Whether you know Jason Sudeikis best from his days on Saturday Night Live or as the star and co-creator of the critically acclaimed Ted Lasso, you’re undoubtedly aware of his mad dancing skills. And it turns out that that fancy footwork is what got him hired as a performer on SNL in the first place.

In “SNL Stories From the Show,” Sudeikis shared that while he originally auditioned as a performer on the series—at the urging of Jeff Richmond, Tina Fey’s husband—he was offered a role as a writer, which led him to believe he had blown it. “I was confused, because I had just figured out how to write for myself,” Sudeikis recalled. “I had imposter syndrome.”

Sudeikis lucked out in his early days as a writer, getting two sketches on the air in his first two weeks as a writer—one of them being then first-time host Justin Timberlake’s Punk’d parody. In his third week, Sudeikis got to write a piece (with Robert Smigel) for his uncle, Cheers star George Wendt. “And then I went like 10 weeks with jacksh*t. But I loved the rewrite table.”

While Sudeikis felt honored to be a part of the SNL experience, it prevented him from performing and also forced him to live apart from his wife at the time, which he relayed to Lorne Michaels. The conversation took place on a Friday night in April 2005, just ahead of a season 30 episode that was hosted by Tom Brady with Beck as the musical guest.

Sudeikis recalled that Beck “for some reason had a hype man next to him, just dancing buck wild—going crazy,” which gave him an idea. Sudeikis and several of his fellow writers had written a Behind the Music parody of “The Super Bowl Shuffle” with Brady playing Jim McMahon. “The premise was that they did ‘The Super Bowl Shuffle,’ it was a huge success, and they tried to do another one, and then [McMahon] went solo. And when he went solo, I would just dance behind him.”

You can probably see where this is going.

Sudeikis decided that he would do his version of going buck wild behind Brady’s McMahon, “which was doing all these ‘90s hip-hop dances I knew how to do from being one of the few white kids on a predominantly Black basketball team in my high school basketball days.”

Because Brady’s hype man was such a prominent role, there was a discussion about having a cast member take it on. Smartly, everyone realized that no one else would get the laughs that Sudeikis did with his dancing. Which is what ultimately led Michaels to offer him a role as a performer, and became one of Sudeikis’ signature moves.

“So that’s how I ended up in the cast. That same frigging dancing that people love from ‘What Up With That’ is the same frigging dancing I did as a 16-year-old kid trying to make my teammates laugh.”

You can watch the full video above.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter premiered in September at the Venice International Film Festival in September, where it received a four-minute long standing ovation and stellar reviews. Us non-Venetians will finally get to see what all the hubbub is about on December 31 when the film comes out on Netflix (it’s also getting a limited theatrical release beginning December 17). It’s a good thing The Lost Daughter is getting strong buzz, too; otherwise, star Olivia Colman would have a permanent reminder of a bad movie on her body (Cara Delevingne knows what’s up).

In an interview with Town and Country, Dakota Johnson, who plays Nina in Gyllenhaal’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel, revealed that she gave Colman her first tattoo.

Dance parties would become a tradition for The Lost Daughter team, who threw down again after a New York Film Festival screening in October. Johnson and [Peter] Sarsgaard shared their playlist with the DJ at Altro Paradiso in Soho. “It was a lot of Talking Heads, the Cranberries,” says Johnson, who — sometime later, back at the hotel — used a stick-and-poke kit to give Colman her first tattoo.

“Maybe it was me being completely seduced by this gorgeous person and wanting her to think I was cool,” Colman said. “Or maybe it was my midlife crisis.” It’s probably the former. Dakota also told Town and Country that since the vaccine has become available, she’s noticed that people, herself included, “are not behaving normally. If you go to a party, you fucking rage.” Maybe leave the tattoo kit at home, though.

(Via Town and Country)

It’s that time of the year again — Spotify Wrapped is here. While many are spending the first day of December decorating for the holidays, music lovers around the globe are checking their Spotify account to see a round up of their most-streamed artists, albums, and songs of the year. The data shows that Olivia Rodrigo had a massive year, as she had the most-streamed song and album worldwide. But there was another artist whose music was streamed the most times around the world on the platform: Bad Bunny.

Thanks to Bad Bunny’s prolific songwriting, the Puerto Rican rapper received the most streams on Spotify out of any other artist around the world. According to Spotify’s data, rapper was streamed 9.1 billion times globally this year, an impressive feat for an artist who didn’t even release an album in 2021. Following behind Bad Bunny in worldwide streaming numbers is Taylor Swift at No. 2, BTS at No. 3, Drake at No. 4, and Justin Bieber at No. 5.

When Bad Bunny found out the news, he still remained humble. The musician said he makes music for the love of it and his goal was never to be the most-streamed artists around the world.

While Bad Bunny may have been the top-streamed artist around the globe, the stats look a little different in the US. Bad Bunny was the fifth-most-streamed artist on Spotify in the US, while Drake took the No. 1 slot. Taylor Swift was behind Drake while Juice WRLD came in at No. 3 and Kanye West at No. 4.

See a video of Bad Bunny finding out he’s 2021’s most-streamed artist above.

Check out more Spotify Wrapped data here, and to get your own Wrapped info for 2021, check out the Spotify mobile app.

The Houston Chronicle reports Live Nation and Travis Scott, under fire for the recent disaster at the Astroworld Festival last month, have made a prominent hire as they prepare to defend themselves from a deluge of cases from injured attendees and the families of the 10 people who died as a result of the crowd crush at Astroworld.

Scott has tapped global corporate law firm O’Melveny & Myers’ head of litigation Daniel Petrocelli, who is best known for representing Fred Goldman in the 1997 trial against OJ Simpson for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. OJ was found liable in that case, despite being previously acquitted for the murders in a criminal trial.

It was Petrocelli who reached out to the families of victims who died at the festival with the offer to cover funeral costs; however, half the families, including that of 9-year-old Ezra Blount, rejected the offer, writing in response, “[Scott] must face and hopefully see that he bears some of the responsibility for this tragedy. There may be, and I hope there is, redemption and growth for him on the other side of what this painful process will be – and perhaps one day, once time allows some healing for the victims and acceptance of responsibility by Mr. Scott and others, Treston and Mr. Scott might meet – as there is also healing in that.”

Meanwhile, Live Nation’s head defender will be the Susman Godfrey law firm, prompting the lawyer representing about 75 victims to say, “For Live Nation to hire the Susman firm shows that the company knows it is in deep trouble and is preparing for a bet-the-company litigation fight.”

According to the Chronicle, more than 120 lawsuits have been filed by about 600 plaintiffs seeking damages totaling over $3 billion. The cases may be consolidated in order to manage the caseload.

Earlier this year, Trevor Noah took the reigns as host of the Grammy Awards, and the Recording Academy was so pleased with the job he did that they’re bringing him back to host the 2022 ceremony, too.

Making the announcement, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. says (as Deadline notes), “Trevor was amazing as our host for the 63rd Grammy Awards with praise from the music community, music fans and critics. We’re so excited to welcome Trevor back to the Grammys stage and feel fortunate to once again have him hosting what we believe will be an unforgettable evening.”

George Cheeks — President and CEO of CBS and Chief Content Officer, News & Sports of Paramount+ — also noted, “Trevor brought his trademark talent and versatility to last March’s Grammys, and we can’t wait for him to host the event on CBS and Paramount+ again this year.”

Noah shared the news with a video of a baby in a pool rhythmically and adorably moving its shoulders, followed by Noah doing the same. The video’s TikTok robot voice narration says, “When you get to tell the world you’re hosting the Grammys again this year.”

The 2022 Grammys are set to go down on January 31, so look forward to more Noah then and find the full list of nominees here.